Many businesses now buy and sell goods and services on a world-wide basis. With high speed transportation and communications facilities, national boundaries no longer serve as an impediment to international commerce. However, differences in language continue to hinder communications between individuals in different countries. To avoid language differences from interfering with business transactions, many businesses employ translators on a full-time basis for performing language translation whenever necessary. For large entities that regularly deal in international commerce, employing one or more translators is simply a cost of doing business.
For smaller companies, the cost of employing a translator on a full-time basis is often prohibitive. Thus, such companies usually hire translators on an as-needed basis. This approach may be satisfactory when the need for language translation is known in advance, allowing sufficient time to procure an individual capable of performing the needed translation. However, situations commonly arise when language translation is needed on an ad-hoc basis, such as when someone must suddenly place, or receive, a telephone call from someone speaking a different language, or when some one must send or receive text in a different language.
Thus, there is a need, especially in connection with a telecommunications network, for automatically translating the information generated by a calling and called parties.